A lorry driver has been jailed after causing the death of a much-loved husband and father.
Daniel Loft, aged 37, who was known as Danny, was fatally injured when a lorry crashed into his flatbed truck, which had broken down on the A46 northbound near East Bridgford on 12 December 2024.
Nottingham Crown Court heard the driver of the lorry, Colin Longbottom, had been using a built-in touchscreen and had failed to pay enough attention to the road.
Due to being distracted, Longbottom, 63, crashed into Danny’s stationary vehicle. Danny, of Bingham, had just exited his truck via the passenger side door and was struck by his vehicle, sustaining serious head injuries.
He was taken to Queen’s Medical Centre and treated in intensive care for 18 days. Sadly, his injuries were not survivable and he died on 30 December 2024, leaving behind a wife and two children.
Internal CCTV in the cab captured Longbottom looking down for prolonged periods and taking intermittent glances at the road ahead, with the court hearing his eyes were off the road for approximately four seconds prior to the collision.
During a police interview, Longbottom, of Woodhouse Road, Wakefield, told officers he had been using the touchscreen in an effort to turn off his fog lights but accepted his driving fell far below the standards of a competent driver.
As part of the police investigation, Longbottom’s mobile phone was examined, and detectives found he had been using the device whilst driving a few minutes before the collision.
Collision investigators found he had been sending Facebook messages and making calls which were not completed by voice activation, although he was not using his phone at the time of the crash.
Longbottom, of Woodhouse Road, Wakefield, went on to plead guilty to causing death by dangerous driving on 6 January and was sentenced today (10 February).
Sentencing him to 53 months in prison, Judge Rupert Mayo said:
“These cases are always unbelievably tragic. There are no winners in cases such as these, and it would be wrong of anybody, myself included, to try and value Danny’s life in weeks, months or years [when passing sentence].
“You were driving on the A46 while trying to operate the fog lights, and you failed to observe the hazard in the carriageway.
“You accepted the occasional glances were insufficient to properly register what was ahead of you. You should not have taken your eyes off the road. You were driving a thunderous vehicle capable of causing catastrophic damage.
“You took your eyes off the road for at least four seconds. That was why this was fairly and squarely dangerous driving.
“Your life has been utterly ruined by what happened on 12 December 2024, as have the lives of those who loved Danny Loft.”
